


Hair Dye and Ammonia

by Recourse



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, PTSD, Post-Sacrifice Arcadia Bay Ending, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-29
Updated: 2017-01-29
Packaged: 2018-09-20 14:04:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9494786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Recourse/pseuds/Recourse
Summary: The storm follows you.Related toDamaged Goods,but separate.





	

You see it in her eyes, when she makes her choice.

You reach out blindly, grab her wrist before she tears the photograph in two. “No,” you blurt, unable to process _why._ The obvious choice is in front of her, but she looks back at you with dead eyes, her muscles straining against you.

“I won’t,” she says, inaudible over the roar of the storm, just her lips telling you this. You hold tight.

“Don’t,” you tell her. “You don’t have to go back. But don’t rip it up.”

“Chloe—”

You reach forward and snatch the photo, stuffing it into the inside pocket of your jacket. There it stays; she makes no move to take it from you.

She turns to face the tornado that’s approaching the Bay. Her hand blindly gropes in the air, and all you can do is take it and watch as your hometown crumbles into pieces.

 

* * *

 

Eventually, the two of you find shelter in the truck far below at the trailhead. You’re both soaked and exhausted, and you want the rain to stop. So you turn on the car, turn up the heat, strip off your wet clothes and huddle with each other in your underwear.

This is when she first kisses you, really kisses you. She climbs on top of you and looks into your eyes, her breath hot between you, your legs between hers. There’s no joy in the contact when she leans down and meets your lips, just raw lust and destructive emotion, just your heart finally beating again after a full day of terrified numbness. Your lips slide against hers, envelop hers and then are enveloped in turn, her teeth graze your flesh and leave you gasping. The storm rages outside and all you can hear are her quiet moans, her hissing breath, the need coming out of her, and you won’t refuse. How could you? How could you deny her anything?

In little enough time you’re both out of your clothes entirely, her hands exploring you, your bodies pressed together in this confined space. She blanks out everything for you, and you do the same for her. You fall asleep with her curled up into your chest as the world outside slides into silence and darkness.

 

* * *

 

To your surprise, the sun does rise.

In fact, it seems like the world might almost be normal, which doesn’t make sense considering you’re lying naked in your truck with your time-traveling childhood best friend.

She stirs in your arms, blinking and looking out of the windows at the golden dawn. She turns over and sees you, strokes your hair, kisses you. “It’s over,” she promises.

You have to break the mood.

“What the fuck do we do now?” you ask.

She buries her head in your chest. “We stay alive. Both of us,” she mumbles, voice vibrating your skin.

“Where are we supposed to go?” You can hear your voice break. But it’s not the last time she’ll see you cry, so fuck it.

“To my parents, I guess.” Max shrugs. “Wherever. As long as I’m with you.”

That phrase burns into your memory. It hurts every time.

 

* * *

 

They welcome you into their home, say you can stay as long as you need. You didn’t hear from Joyce or David the whole way out. The list of the dead is updated hourly, but you don’t check. It doesn’t matter. You’re tied to Max, now. What she says is what happens. You owe her everything.

The two of you haunt the Caulfield house, nearly silent. You spend the nights in Max’s bed, clinging to one another under the covers, crying into her shoulder. You don’t check the list of the dead, except when you do, and you see another familiar name and you close the tab and you stare blankly into nothing instead.

You awaken with her on the fourth night, when thunder crashes through the house and startles you both. You run to her bedroom window and see the rain smashing against the glass, see the beginnings of the funnel cloud on the horizon.

You pull her up, force her to see, grab the photograph from your jacket and shove it into her face. This can’t keep happening. It has to be over.

This time she does tear it up. You gather the halves in your hands as she turns away. She dresses noiselessly as you gingerly put the pieces back into your jacket.

“We have to run,” she says.

 

* * *

 

This first time, you drive in one direction. Max turns off her phone after the fifth call from her parents. It never rings again. The storm over Seattle doesn’t coalesce, the funnel reverts, but the clouds follow, always just over the horizon.

The two of you drive in one direction until you can’t stay awake. She takes over and drives the truck to a gas station. You lay your head against the window and close your eyes until you hear the engine start again. You look to your left and see Max’s hand clenched tight on the wheel, blood running from her nose as she places a pile of cash on the dashboard. She didn’t have that when she left the cab. You fled with nothing but the clothes on your back.

You know what she did. She sniffs and wipes her face and you know what she did. But what can you say? What can you do?

You follow her into the motel she drives you to and fall into bed with her. Her blood smears the pillow. She kisses you anyway, mounts you like she did the first time, and you let yourself forget.

 

* * *

 

When you wake up in the morning, you can see the clouds through the window, making their slow approach. You get up, careful not to disturb her heavy sleep. She doesn’t move in her sleep anymore, not the way she used to, not the way she did when she crashed in your bed in the Bay. No cute little noises from her, no moving around in the night and wrapping her arms around you. She sleeps like she’s dead. The way you should be.

You pull a t-shirt over your head and find your boxers on the floor. You dig into your jacket, find the halves of the photo. You can’t keep doing this to her.

You pad down to the lobby, ask the receptionist for tape. You do your best, there with him watching you try, his expression guarded and concerned. The dispenser sounds impossibly loud, echoing through the hallway. But you manage. It’s almost whole again. You thank him with your best attempt at a smile and head back to Max.

You lay the photograph on the nightstand on her side of the bed. Crawl in beside her and wait for her to wake. She’s still warm. Still alive. And with you, for some reason.

She deserves better.

She wakes silently in your arms. She stirs and shifts, head tilting to see what’s on the nightstand. Her body stiffens.

“Chloe, no.” She sits up, curls her knees up to her chest.

“Could you still use it?” you ask.

“I _won’t._ ”

So that’s a yes.

“Max, just fucking do it already,” you demand, grabbing her by the shoulder and forcing her to look at you. “We both know you’re gonna go sometime.”

“No, I won’t,” Max lies.

“You are so full of shit,” you reply. You don’t want to talk to her like this, but you have to. “This isn’t living, Max. Just go back and let me die. Nobody in Arcadia deserved this.”

“There has to be a _reason._ ” Max knots the sheets in her hands. “I can’t. I can’t go back and act like nothing happened.”

“So, what, we’ll spend the rest of our lives running?”

“If we have to.”

You want to scream. She’s lying, to you, to herself, and you know it, and she has to know it.

“Max, shit doesn’t happen for a reason,” you tell her. “Shit just happens.”

“I’m not doing it. Ever.” Max slides out of bed and stands, facing away from you, her arms folded. “You can just burn it now. I’m not losing you. Not again. I’m done watching you die.”

You stash the photograph later, keep it in your jacket.

You wait for her to give up.

 

* * *

 

You keep moving.

You steal everything. Suitcases. Clothes to put in them. Money for laundry when you stop. Food. A tent and camping stove.

Max comes out of each store bloodier. Sometimes it takes hours for the nosebleeds to stop. Sometimes she just makes it into the truck before she falls unconscious.

One day, she reaches over and threads her fingers through your hair while you drive. “It’s getting long,” she murmurs.

“So?”

“Let’s go get it cut. I could use one too.” She toys with her own hair, reaching down past her shoulders now.

“What the hell does it matter?” you ask. “Not like anyone sees us for more than a couple minutes before you rob them blind.”

“I like your hair short.”

You look over to her. She stares at her hands. “I like it blue, too,” she mumbles.

You sigh. Well, why not, anyway. If it’s what she likes, you might as well go with it. It’s the least you can do for her. You guess.

“Good point,” you say. “Blue’s better, right? Might as well be punk if you’re gonna be homeless.” You try to give her a smile, and she tries right back.

You’re still not sure if you’re grateful to her or not.

 

* * *

 

She wakes you up from your catnap in the passenger seat by pressing a couple of CDs into your hands.

“Happy birthday, Chloe,” she whispers.

She kisses your cheek as you look down at the albums. Just more songs to add to the endless soundtrack of your lives, as you drive across the US. In time they’ll get as old as everything else.

You remember when you used to look forward to going on a roadtrip with Max.

 

* * *

 

Your truck crawls to a stop just as you reach a campsite somewhere in Colorado. You curse and hit the thing, but it won’t start back up. Max gets out and looks around the campground as you pop the hood and pretend you can understand what the fuck might be wrong.

She comes back driving someone else’s RV.

Before you can ask what the fuck is going on, the luggage in your truck vanishes before your eyes. She stands in the open doorway of the RV, pale and bloodied, wavering on her feet.

You rush in, grab her before she falls, and all she tells you to do is drive.

And you do. You buckled her into the passenger seat and go. You drive for hours in no particular direction, but the cops don’t find you, if they were even notified, if the owner knows this thing is missing yet. You stop on a mountain backroad and park.

She hasn’t woken up.

You take her to the bed in the back and lie her down, watch her breathe, wipe her face. You wonder if she’ll die.

Sometimes it feels like that would be easier.

You fall asleep beside her. She wakes you up, smiling.

“We should’ve gotten one of these a while ago,” she says, like it’s funny, like this is fine. “Way more convenient.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” you ask, pushing her away. “Jesus, Max, I thought you were gonna die! And now we’re running around in a fucking stolen car!”

“We’ll be fine,” she promises. “I can just rewind. We’re invincible, Chloe.”

“Did you lose a couple brain cells when you passed out?” You get up off the bed, pacing erratically, hands clenching at your sides. You dig into your jacket, look at the photo, like always when you’re fighting. You fight a lot these days. “This is just gonna make things worse!”

“We’ll be more comfortable,” Max says quietly. “That’s all I want.”

“I want this to be _over._ Max.” You thrust the photo at her. “We have to stop this.”

“I told you no.”

“Max—”

She turns over and buries her face in the pillow. She doesn’t respond to you when you’re like this, not anymore. You say the same things you always do, about how all those people in Arcadia deserved to live more than you do, about how Max deserves a chance at a real life and every minute she spends clinging to your corpse is another one she’s missing. She’s told you her rebuttals, that she’ll just go back traumatized and she’ll never be the same anyway, and it went around in circles, and now it just stops at you and your rage until you’re done.

You’re sick of this.

You storm out of the RV and reach into your waistband, the gun you keep tucked in your belt. You raise it to the side of your head. Maybe _now_ she’ll listen. She’ll do what she should’ve done months ago.

She materializes to your right, her hands clenched on your wrist, wrenching the gun out of your hands. Her eyes are dark and angry in the moonlight.

She vanishes.

You’re shaking. You don’t know what to do. You run back into the RV and find her cross-legged on the bed, nose dripping onto the sheets.

You don’t know whether to be angry or afraid.

“I won’t,” she repeats. “No matter what.”

 

* * *

 

She lies with you on the bed, playing with your hair.

“It’s getting long,” she says.

“Who cares?” you ask.

“Don’t you want to...?”

“I don’t give a shit anymore.”

She buries her face in your chest.

You wait for the sobbing to stop.

 

* * *

 

 

You try. Again and again and again.

You can never finish tying the knot. When you try to jump, her arms are around your waist. The knife disappears from your grasp as you try to draw it across your throat.

She takes pictures every time she falls asleep, just in case. There’s no way to escape. No way to force her to fix this awful “life” of yours.

You hate her.

 

* * *

 

 

One day, you sit down in the driver’s seat, and wonder why.

“Come on, Chloe. We’ve been here for three days,” she urges.

“I can’t do this anymore,” is what you tell her.

“Then let me drive.”

And you do.

 

* * *

 

You haven’t spoken to her in weeks. You wander around the RV aimlessly, listlessly. You watch the storm clouds approach every time you stop. You let her kiss you and hold you and fuck you, because what else is there to do?

She cries most nights. She knows she’s lost you. You’re still waiting for her to give up. When she finally does, it’s so quiet you almost don’t hear it.

“Let’s go somewhere remote,” she says, head hanging. “We’ll let it form where it won’t hurt anyone.”

You look over to her in the driver’s seat, hair hanging long down her body. She’s aged. Wrinkles and shaking hands and worry lines.

“I won’t live without you. But this isn’t living.” You can see the tears falling down her cheeks, but you still can’t process that she’s finally saying this. How long has it been? You stopped keeping track.

“I love you, Chloe.” She swallows. “I’m sorry.”

Your voice is weak from underuse, but you manage to croak out, “Me too.”

She slams on the breaks and parks on the side of the road so she can kiss you, like it’s the last time.

 

* * *

 

You make love, that final night. If it can be called that. You’re not even sure you really love her anymore, but you still feel so much more alive than you have in years.

Lying with her as the storm forms over your heads feels peaceful. Now that you know an end is coming, your brain has finally shut up. There’s nothing left but the rain outside, the sound of hail smashing against the windshield. You’re ready. She looks so angelic, beneath the dirt and the back-length hair, eyes closed and breath deep.

Until thunder cracks overhead and Max jumps up. You snake an arm around her waist.

“It’ll be here soon,” you murmur. “Come on. We said we’d wait for it here.”

She turns to look at you. “Chloe?”

“Second thoughts, Max?”

She looks around, squinting like she’s never seen this place before. “Max, come on,” you urge, pressing your uncut, ragged nails into her skin. “Let’s just sleep through it.”

Max gets up, still looking around. You sit up, trying to work out what the deal is. This is over. It’s supposed to be over. “Max? Max, please,” you beg. “What’s going on?”

She turns to face you, blood running from her nose, eyes wide open. You lean forward and sigh. “Max, come on. We know we can’t fix it. Why are you trying now? We agreed.”

“What did we agree on?”

Something in you lights up, despite yourself. But you have to be sure. “Oh, fuck.” You stand up. “Remember? We said we’d let it form out here, so it wouldn’t hurt anyone?”

“I—”

“You’re not my Max.”

“N-no, I’m not.”

Your whole body feels like it’s deflating. Thank God. A Max who didn’t go through all of this. Maybe she’s happy, wherever she is. Or at least, she’s not going through _this._ “Christ,” is all you can say. “Good. She was fucking miserable, all because of me.”

“Chloe—”

“Will you fix it?” you ask, suddenly feeling eager. “Go back, a-and let me die?”

She nods. “Do—do you have the photo?”

“Of course I do.” You run back and find it right where you left it, bound in the tiny journal in your jacket pocket. “She tried to tear it up,” you tell her, showing her the picture. “I got it back. I kept it safe, just in case. Can you — can you still use it?”

She draws in a deep breath. “Yes,” she whispers as a tree crashes to the ground outside.

“Then fucking go.” You shove the notebook into her check, hoping to God she’ll stop, she’ll leave, this can finally be over.

She wavers, her eyes glancing from you, to the photo, to you again. You can’t help but wonder.

“Hey,” you ask. “Where did you come from?”

“A—a world where I let you die. Back in Arcadia Bay.”

“Then how—”

“I’m the one that made her kiss you first.”

You push some of your hair out of your eyes, and almost laugh. Figures. You’re only here because she made some dumbass mistake years ago. Sounds right.

“Man, you really fucked up hard,” you tell her.

She’s staring hard into the photo as she says, “Yeah.”

“Do me a favor, Max,” you add as the world starts to whiten around you, as sound starts leaving your perception. You can see the universe’s seams, cracking open in the air.

“Forget about me.”

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

>   
>  _we stank of hair dye and ammonia_   
>  _we sealed ourselves away from view_   
>  _you were looking at the void and seldom blinking_   
>  _the best that i could do_   
>  _was to train my eyes on you_   
> 


End file.
